A teenage babysitter receives disturbing phone calls from a stranger asking "Have you checked on the children?" After calling the police, they trace the call and discover it's coming from inside the house—from the upstairs phone. The killer has been in the house the whole time.
The Babysitter and the Wi-Fi Intruder
Sarah, a 17-year-old babysitter, was watching two kids while their parents attended a dinner party. She settled on the couch with her phone, scrolling through TikTok while the children slept upstairs.
At 9:47 PM, she received a DM on Instagram from an unknown account with no profile picture: "Have you checked on the children?"
She blocked the account, assuming it was spam. But five minutes later, another message appeared on Snapchat from a different username: "They're so peaceful when they sleep."
Her heart raced. She opened the family's smart home app and checked the baby monitor. Both children were sleeping safely. Relieved, she screenshot the messages and posted them on her Instagram story with the caption "Creepy spammer vibes 😬."
Then her Apple Watch buzzed—an AirDrop request from "Unknown" containing a photo. She hesitated, then accepted it.
Her blood ran cold. It was a photo of her, sitting on that exact couch, taken seconds ago from behind.
Panicking, Sarah checked the home's Wi-Fi network on her phone. There were five devices connected—but the parents had told her there should only be three (her phone, the smart TV, and the baby monitor).
Two unknown devices: "iPhone 13" and "Samsung Galaxy."
She opened the Ring doorbell app with shaking hands—no one had entered through the front door. She checked the security camera footage, rewinding through the evening. Then she saw it: at 7:23 PM, while she was getting the kids ready for bed, a hooded figure had walked past the living room window, heading toward the basement door.
Sarah's phone buzzed again. A text from that first Instagram account, now somehow texting her personal number: "Check the Find My Friends notification."
With trembling fingers, she opened the app. Someone had shared their location with her—it showed a blue dot labeled "Unknown" positioned inside the house. Upstairs. In the kids' room.
She immediately called 911, grabbed the children, and ran outside. Police arrived within minutes and found a man hiding in the upstairs closet. He had hacked into the home's Wi-Fi network hours earlier, accessing all their smart devices—the baby monitor, doorbell camera, smart lights, and even their phones.
His phone was still open to her social media profiles, tracking her every post, every story, every location tag.
VOCABULARY FOCUS FOR ESL STUDENTS
Technology & Social Media Terms:
- DM (Direct Message) - A private message sent on social media
- Profile picture - The photo that represents your account
- Block/Blocked - To prevent someone from contacting you
- Username - Your unique name on a platform
- Screenshot - A picture of your phone/computer screen
- Instagram story - A temporary photo/video post that disappears after 24 hours
- AirDrop - Apple's feature to share files between devices
- Apple Watch - A smart watch made by Apple
- Wi-Fi network - Wireless internet connection
- Smart home app - Application to control house devices
- Baby monitor - Device to watch/hear a baby from another room
- Ring doorbell - A video doorbell with camera
- Security camera footage - Video recordings from security cameras
- Find My Friends - App to share locations with friends
- Location tag - Adding location information to posts
- Hack/Hacked into - To illegally access computer systems
- Smart devices - Internet-connected electronic devices
- Blue dot (location indicator) - Shows someone's position on a map
Phrases & Expressions:
- "Her heart raced" - Feeling scared or excited
- "Her blood ran cold" - Extremely frightened
- "With trembling/shaking fingers" - Fear response causing physical reaction
- "Spam" - Unwanted messages or emails
- "Creepy vibes" - Uncomfortable or scary feeling
- "Tracking her every post" - Stalking someone's online activity
Ten Classic Urban Legend Plots
1. The Vanishing Hitchhiker
A driver picks up a hitchhiker on a dark road, usually a young woman in old-fashioned or white clothing. She gives an address and sits silently in the back seat. When the driver arrives at the destination, the hitchhiker has vanished. The driver knocks on the door, and the resident explains that their daughter died years ago on that same road—often on that exact date. Sometimes the hitchhiker leaves behind a jacket or scarf that's found draped over a gravestone.
2. Bloody Mary
A group of people (usually teenage girls) gather in a dark bathroom with a single candle. They chant "Bloody Mary" three, thirteen, or one hundred times while staring into a mirror. According to legend, the ghost of Mary (sometimes said to be a witch, murdered woman, or Queen Mary I) will appear in the mirror. She might show your future, scratch your face, pull you into the mirror, or kill you. Some versions say she only appears if you've done something wrong.
3. The Hook/The Hook Man
A teenage couple parks in a secluded "lovers' lane" at night. On the radio, they hear a news bulletin: a dangerous killer with a hook for a hand has escaped from a nearby mental institution. The girl gets nervous and asks to leave. The boy reluctantly agrees. When they arrive at her house and he opens her door, they discover a bloody hook hanging from the door handle—the killer had been right outside the car.
4. The Killer in the Backseat
A woman drives alone at night when another car begins following her, flashing its headlights repeatedly and honking. Terrified, she speeds up, but the car continues pursuing her. She finally reaches a gas station or her home and runs inside screaming for help. The driver of the other car emerges and explains he saw a man with a weapon (knife, axe, or gun) rise up from her backseat every time she stopped at a light. He was flashing his lights every time the killer raised his weapon, scaring him back down. The killer is found hiding in her backseat.
5. The Kidney Heist/Waking Up in a Bathtub of Ice
A business traveler meets an attractive stranger at a hotel bar. After accepting a drink, they black out. They wake up in a bathtub filled with ice, with a note saying "Call 911" or "Don't move." They discover surgical stitches on their torso—one or both of their kidneys have been stolen by organ harvesters. A phone is always conveniently nearby. Variations include waking up in a hotel room or abandoned building.
6. The Clown Statue
Parents hire a babysitter for the evening. After putting the children to bed, the babysitter calls the parents asking if she can watch TV in their bedroom because the clown statue in the living room is creeping her out. The father's voice turns serious: "Get the children and leave the house immediately. We don't have a clown statue." They call the police, who discover that a person dressed as a clown (sometimes an escaped mental patient or murderer) has been standing motionless in the corner, watching the family for weeks or months.
7. The Licked Hand/Humans Can Lick Too
A young girl is home alone (or her parents are asleep) with only her dog for company. She's nervous, so she lets her dog sleep under her bed. During the night, she hears a dripping sound from the bathroom but is too scared to investigate. She reaches her hand down, and the dog licks it reassuringly. This happens several times throughout the night. In the morning, she finds her dog murdered in the bathroom, hanging above the tub—the source of the dripping. Written in blood on the mirror or wall: "Humans can lick too." A killer had been hiding under her bed all night.
8. The Choking Doberman
A woman returns home to find her Doberman choking in the hallway. She rushes the dog to the emergency vet, who says he needs to perform surgery immediately and she should go home. Shortly after arriving home, the vet calls frantically, telling her to leave the house and call the police immediately. When police arrive, they find an intruder hiding in a closet or bedroom, missing two or three fingers—the dog had bitten them off and was choking on them. The intruder had been waiting to attack the woman when she returned.
9. The Spider Bite/The Boil
A person notices a small bite or bump on their face or body (cheek is most common). It grows larger and more painful over several days but they ignore it, thinking it's just a pimple or spider bite. Eventually, it bursts or they squeeze it—and hundreds of baby spiders come pouring out. A spider had laid eggs under their skin. Variations include other insects like cockroaches, or the bump being a exotic spider bite from fruit at the grocery store. Some versions are set in tanning beds where spiders nest in the equipment.
10. The Call from the Graveyard/The Dead Boyfriend
A teenage couple's car breaks down in a remote area late at night, near a cemetery or woods. The boyfriend leaves to get help, telling his girlfriend to lock the doors and not open them for anyone but him. Hours pass. She hears strange scratching and thumping sounds on the car roof all night but is too terrified to look. At dawn, police arrive and tell her over a loudspeaker to get out of the car and walk toward them without looking back. She obeys. As she walks away, she realizes the scratching sound was her boyfriend's fingernails—he was murdered and hung from a tree branch above the car, swaying and scraping the roof. Some versions say the killer placed him there deliberately; others suggest he escaped but died trying to warn her.